Review: The City's Son by Tom Pollock

The City's Son by Tom Pollock
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Release date: August 2, 2012
Purchase: Amazon / Barnes and Noble

Running from her traitorous best friend and her estranged father, graffiti artist Beth Bradley is looking for sanctuary. What she finds is Urchin, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London’s mystical underworld. Urchin opens Beth’s eyes to the city she’s never truly seen-where vast spiders crawl telephone wires seeking voices to steal, railwraiths escape their tethers, and statues conceal an ancient priesthood robed in bronze.

But it all teeters on the brink of destruction. Amid rumors that Urchin’s goddess mother will soon return from her 15-year exile, Reach, a malign god of urban decay, wants the young prince dead. Helping Urchin raise an alleyway army to reclaim his skyscraper throne, Beth soon forgets her old life. But when her best friend is captured, Beth must choose between this wondrous existence and the life she left behind.

My Thoughts:
Having been completely taken aback and confused by this storyline, that didn’t stop The City’s Son from still creeping me out. All I have to say is “What just happened!?!”  As far as the creep-factor, I can't quite put my finger on why I felt this way. I do know I was thoroughly confused and perplexed for most of the book, you’ll see why later. However,  I have no doubt that the next installments are going to involve an epic showdown.  But unfortunately, since this book wasn’t quite for me, I’ll have to rely on other steampunk fan reviews to see how this all plays out. The journey stops here for me and let me explain why.

Seeing as I have no clue what really happened in this book, my summary is going to be very short.  There are two characters Fil and Beth who meet by chance and both needing help in different ways.  They team up together to stop Reach from taking the city. See quite simple, but the story is so so far from that.  You have weird spider thingies, and glass bulb thingies, and a person that has to recreate themselves from garbage everyday and that is just what you learn in the first few pages. My brain hurt from trying to decipher what was what in this highly detailed steampunkish novel.  I can usually stretch my imagination pretty far but I just couldn't grasp what was going on.  I can't say that I didn't like this because it did capture my attention, but what I liked got so jumbled up with all the detailing of the world that I lost it.  I think the overall story is a good one, with Fil trying to recapture his city before his tyrant of a mother returns to invoke her wrath upon all who betrayed her. See sounds good right??  I enjoyed Beth's side of the story also.  She had to grow up very early when her Dad checked out on her after her mothers death and she shows a lot of strength while standing by Fil's side.  I just again couldn't focus on her because of all the craziness.

My low rating is not because The City's Son is a bad read it is because it just didn't work for me.  I think this book requires a certain type of mindset and I don't think my imagination can be stretched that far.  So if you are looking for a very unique world this is the book for you. I think the world here is very amazing and beautiful so please give it a shot and if you do read it please let me know what exactly those spider thingies look like!

2.5 Snowflakes

 

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